


The Man in the Mirror

by Jadesfire



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-29
Updated: 2010-03-29
Packaged: 2017-10-08 10:01:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/75526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jadesfire/pseuds/Jadesfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some people are hard to forget.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Man in the Mirror

_And you've passed your most dangerous, difficult test  
If the guy in the glass is your friend._  
From _The Guy in the Glass_ by Dale Wimbrow

 

The first time he notices that he's doing it (really notices, not just suspects and ignores it), they're on Grell, and he's trying to explain to Martha how the fifth gender works.

"And I suppose one might compare them to amoebas in that way. Most extraordinary." He glances at her, sees the mixture of surprise and amusement and something else that he can't quite place. "What?"

"One? One might compare them?" She shrugs, turning so he can't see her face. "Doesn't quite sound like you, that's all."

"No, it doesn't, does it?" And he knows it isn't him, just as she knows, but the name is unsaid between them.

It happens later the same day as he's changing his tie. The mud stains would never have come out of the old one, so he decides to just get rid of it, taking the new one over to the mirror to do it up. His hands move automatically, as they always do, ever since he was taught at prep school.

He closes his eyes. Not at prep school. There was no prep school, not for him. Still with his eyes tightly shut, he finishes the knot, taking a deep breath before opening his eyes to check it's straight. Another man looks back at him, just for a second, before he blinks and the other is gone, submerged beneath himself again.

His mind is wandering on the way back to the console room, and he gives Martha a secretive smile when she asks them where they're going next. The planet he chooses, Tr'dan in the Nr'tal cluster, has some of the finest icebergs in the galaxy. He warns her to find something warm to wear, then stares at the screen as the TARDIS lands. The drifting white mountains are just the peaks, he knows; the visible part of the whole.

By the time Martha gets back, with a thick coat and an absurdly long scarf, he's already dematerialised them again. He unwinds the scarf with a half-smile, not looking into her wide, confused eyes.

"I guess I'm just a chip off the old block," he says, confusing her even further as he hooks the scarf round his own neck, letting it trail behind him as he leaves.

Chip off the block. It is the Time Lord's contradiction, to be the one who is many.

_A man is the sum of his memories, you know. A Time Lord even more so._

He said that once, so long ago, when the loss of who he had been threatened who he was. Now, it is the gaining of memory, the acquiring of thoughts, emotions, that preys on his mind. He remembers them all, every him-he-has-been. He keeps them in their places where they belong. But this one should not belong to him. This one is the man he never was.

Standing in front of the mirror again, he closes his eyes, closes thought and feeling, before opening his eyes again to look. He is used to this face now, comfortable with the body's quirks. It looks no different as he stares at the reflection, meeting his own eye without flinching and finding only himself there.

There is nothing here to fight. There is nothing that he can capture, block, erase from his mind. The thread of personality that is and always has been him is entwined with the him-he-is-not. It surprises him, worries him. He is not that man, cannot be that man. Yet that man was made out of him, born in pain and desperation, drawing on himself to unmake himself.

He cannot unravel the strands of personality, of memory from each other without unravelling the him-that-he-is. But the him-he-is-not is human, fragile and feeling, and there are other ways to be rid of him than disentangling. They are just memories, thoughts that he can purge, if he chooses. This is something he was taught at school, the last recourse when a Time Lord's mind is under assault, to be rid of unwanted, malign influences.

It is harder to do than he remembers, this absolute purge, and it hurts. There is a flicker of amusement, from one of him, because by definition he wouldn't remember it hurting if he had done it before, the pain evaporating along with the thoughts. But he didn't expect it to bring the disappearing memories into his mind so vividly; the sensations seem too strong to be eradicated in this way. There is the touch of another's hand, of eyes that meet his with a smile that makes his heart (not his hearts) race, of too brief kisses and depths of grief and sorrow that even he finds hard to bear.

"Doctor?"

The touch on his hand is real. He starts, blinking at Martha who is looking up at him, fear in her eyes. When he doesn't speak, she reaches up and touches a finger to his face; he feels the wetness of tears he doesn't remember shedding.

"I'm fine," he says, ducking his head to take the scarf off again, digging his fingers into the wool.

"Right. I mean, I sometimes want to cry when I look in the mirror, but that's usually only first thing in the morning."

He laughs, only half-forcing it as his eyes trace the different coloured threads. Where they meet, the stitches weave in and out of each other, joined into a seamless whole. He decides he prefers that to icebergs. Bringing it to his face, he uses the scratchy cloth to dry his cheeks then turns back to smile at Martha.

"So, what about a beach next? I mean, not a Blackpool type of beach, although if you've never ridden a donkey, that's the place to do it. No, I was thinking, there's this great beach on Ytipa Krantell that's got blue sand for miles, like you've never seen."

He is still talking about sand and suns and green sea as he glances in the mirror again and sees that it is still just him looking back, as whole as he was before, still entirely himself. Maybe there are parts of the him-he-is-not that he can use, remember his memories with fondness. And the very human pain will be subsumed into that which has always been within him.

Finally, before they leave the room, he drapes the scarf over the frame of the mirror, adjusting it so that he can still see himself properly. He doesn't really believe in 'just in case', but he does it anyway, just so it's there for next time.


End file.
